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Eric Cacciatore

Spending most of his childhood in his parent’s restaurant, Eric Cacciatore had a good idea of what the industry was all about. Eric loved the human connectivity, fast pace and excitement of a restaurant; but as he grew older, his drive to be successful led him to study aviation and become a commercial pilot. Though this was a respectable career, Eric felt unfulfilled; aviation didn’t leverage his personal strengths, nor did it satisfy his hunger for self-actualization. Eric asked, “If you aren’t happy, can you truly be considered successful?” He believes “success and happiness is the gradual realization of a worthy ideal.” After 8 years in aviation he resigned and went back to college.

“I turned to Great Bay because I needed direction, I was lost,” Cacciatore said.

That’s when John Burtt, Dawn Comito and David Mazur came in. Burtt is the management & marketing degree coordinator at Great Bay. Comito is the hospitality program coordinator and Mazur is a hospitality management professor. Each had Cacciatore in class and noticed his passion for life and helped him see the big picture, which was that if he was going to be successful in life he needed to focus on his passion, helping others. “Eric exemplifies how reality can be shifted,” Mazur shared. “There are those people that think about it, those that think about trying it and then there’s Eric getting it done.”

Eric took his passion and started something great, Restaurant Unstoppable, a podcast featuring the restaurant industry’s most successful chefs, general managers, proprietors, and more. “Without my GBCC’s professor, I don’t think I would have made it this far with my business.”

According to Eric his biggest achievement was having the courage to start. “I am most proud of starting, most people fail before they even begin,” Cacciatore explains. “To do something great in life you first need to take that leap.” Professor John Burtt agrees, stating that Cacciatore’s most valuable quality is persistence, “He is very focused on goal achievement.” Eric’s podcasts offer valuable advice by making examples of restaurant professionals who have proven to be successful and can attribute it to something they did and attributes they possess. “Once I became aware of Eric’s goals,” Comito said. “I made it a point to connect him with several well-known and respected professionals in the industry.” This prime gave Eric’s engine its initial turn; the RPMs continue to spin faster with every episode. “Some people seek happiness in acquiring money, I seek happiness in helping others,” Cacciatore said. “I’m developing real human relationships and you can’t put a price on human equity.”